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Denver’s e-bike subsidy program produced more new riders, fewer car trips

ridereport.com

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Re: Denver’s e-bike subsidy program produced more new riders, fewer car trips

#31

Post by JPKab »

I'm a huge fan of programs like this, but one thing that cities like Denver (especially Denver) need to be wary of are things that actively worsen bike commutes over time. I live nearby, and one of the things that is a frequent topic of conversation is how dangerous certain bike trails in Denver are due to assaults and muggings. This is a new phenomenon, and there are bike trails in Denver I wouldn't go near on an expensive e-bike. The South Platte trail has some really sketchy areas, including an underpass where a mugger was pulling a clothesline to knock people off their bikes and rob them.

Property crime in Denver has skyrocketed, and even the local light-rail (RTD) has become far more dangerous, discouraging vulnerable people from riding. A whole lot of the weapons to reduce car trips in cities get completely undermined when order collapses.

Re: Denver’s e-bike subsidy program produced more new riders, fewer car trips

#32

Post by acdha »

liquidise wrote: post #6
d_sem wrote: post #4

When you factor in the reduced capital costs, carbon emissions, noise pollution, traffic, wear on infrastructure, health benefits, etc of electric bicycles the opportunity cost of car ownership over e-bike adoption is tremendous. The average cost of owning a car in 2022 is $10,728 per year: a figure which blows my mind.(edit: Source bankrate.com, the top hit on google) As a personal anecdote, my household has gone fr…

How is that yearly cost figure derived? I can't imagine it is repairs, gas, tolls, registration and maintenance alone.

AAA has very similar figures with a breakdown. Depreciation is a lot but not everything:

https://newsroom.aaa.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/2022-You...

Re: Denver’s e-bike subsidy program produced more new riders, fewer car trips

#33

Post by Scubabear68 »

Just today I saw a crazy e-bike kid cruise down a major highway, going back and forth between the north and south lanes on the shoulder at intersections, narrowly missing several tractor trailers. And when I am in major cities I am regularly almost run down by scooter people.

What are the stats on injury rates on these things?

Re: Denver’s e-bike subsidy program produced more new riders, fewer car trips

#34

Post by flyingpenguin »

ProAm wrote: post #18
d_sem wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My source is bankrate.com (top google search hit) which doesn't provide an exact line item breakdown. Here are some parameters they consider: - Average Insurance ~ $1,771 per year - Average Car Monthly Loan ~ $700 per month - Average repair costs ~ $1,425 - Depreciation of initial investment. (google search returns an average new car - cost to be ~$50,000 USD in 2022) - Gas - Registration

> - Average Insurance ~ $1,771 per year > - Average Car Monthly Loan ~ $700 per month Both of these are crazy high. Maybe not for everyone, but 1771 per year for insurance you should be shopping around or using a broker. And a car payment of 700, that is up to the buyer, but IMHO that is absurdly high.

Have you noticed how few sedans are on the road?

I recently considered switching from a sedan to a cross-over... the sticker shock was upsetting. I make 2x as much as most of my friends and I absolutely refused to buy a cross-over, they all have cross-overs or trucks.

Ended up with a Hundai hatchback for 15k less, and bought a roof rack for 1k. When the 4 of us go snowboarding we use my small car instead of their huge expensive cars because I can fit 4 people + 4 snowboards on the roof, while they have to put a seat down for snowboards.

I don't know whats going on with everyone, a all wheel drive hatchback with a roof box is probably cheaper than the average crossover, fits FAR more luggage considering you can actually reach into the box, and if you buy a lift kit its just as good at off-roading as some random crossover is (IE: better than you think, worse than you expect)

Re: Denver’s e-bike subsidy program produced more new riders, fewer car trips

#35

Post by alistairSH »

hathawsh wrote: post #23
d_sem wrote: post #4

When you factor in the reduced capital costs, carbon emissions, noise pollution, traffic, wear on infrastructure, health benefits, etc of electric bicycles the opportunity cost of car ownership over e-bike adoption is tremendous. The average cost of owning a car in 2022 is $10,728 per year: a figure which blows my mind.(edit: Source bankrate.com, the top hit on google) As a personal anecdote, my household has gone fr…

Am I well below the average? I spent $22k on a new car in 1999 that I stopped driving in 2022. I would guess I spent $15k on maintenance and repairs, but let's go on the high end and say $20k for that. That means it cost me an average of $42k / 23 = $1826 per year for that car, excluding fuel. In a year that I drove 10k miles, when the car's fuel economy was 24 MPG and the fuel cost $4 per gallon, the fuel would cost…

Insurance, registration, property taxes (in some areas).

Not sure if that annual costs includes parking and other things that cost, but aren’t obvious for many people (many of us park for “free”, but we’ve paid for those space through higher rents, mortgages, etc).

For the rest of the money, the average new car costs around $50k today. And the average ownership length is about 8 years. Average loan length is approaching 6 years. So, $8333/year to service principal, plus interest, etc. Then only 2-3 years of only fuel/maintenance before starting over again. Plus the majority of depreciation is during those fist few years. On a $50k car, that’s probably $20k of lost value, if not more.

Yes, not everybody buys new cars. But, lots of people do, and they spend an ungodly amount of money on them.

Re: Denver’s e-bike subsidy program produced more new riders, fewer car trips

#36

Post by JPKab »

simonsarris wrote: post #5

Not mentioned in the summary but super relevant to understand what they are talking about: > After nine months, the City had spent $4.7 million to provide vouchers to 4,734 Denver residents [for ebikes and equipment to ride in the winter] I'm a bit skeptical of some of this data: > 65% of Ride Report's Ride App users were riding at least once daily, and 90% were riding weekly. In the report, it mentions the Ride App…

You're correct to be skeptical.

Denver city government has a tremendous amount of waste and city officials and non-profit partners desperately trying to get more funding by presenting programs as rosy as possible. Colorado politics has a long, long history of corruption, but Denver is especially egregious.

Re: Denver’s e-bike subsidy program produced more new riders, fewer car trips

#37

Post by rainsford »

d_sem wrote: post #4

When you factor in the reduced capital costs, carbon emissions, noise pollution, traffic, wear on infrastructure, health benefits, etc of electric bicycles the opportunity cost of car ownership over e-bike adoption is tremendous. The average cost of owning a car in 2022 is $10,728 per year: a figure which blows my mind.(edit: Source bankrate.com, the top hit on google) As a personal anecdote, my household has gone fr…

I'd also argue the potential savings and advantages of e-bikes are undervalued because the bike infrastructure in even the best US cities isn't particularly great. I've spent a fair amount of time in Denver, and while there are some good spots and ongoing improvements, the bike infrastructure in the city is honestly a lot worse than you might expect. Better bike infrastructure would almost certainly increase the e-bike value for people who buy them anyways, but even more importantly make them worth it to a lot more people.

Re: Denver’s e-bike subsidy program produced more new riders, fewer car trips

#38

Post by [deleted] »

hathawsh wrote: post #23
d_sem wrote: post #4

When you factor in the reduced capital costs, carbon emissions, noise pollution, traffic, wear on infrastructure, health benefits, etc of electric bicycles the opportunity cost of car ownership over e-bike adoption is tremendous. The average cost of owning a car in 2022 is $10,728 per year: a figure which blows my mind.(edit: Source bankrate.com, the top hit on google) As a personal anecdote, my household has gone fr…

Am I well below the average? I spent $22k on a new car in 1999 that I stopped driving in 2022. I would guess I spent $15k on maintenance and repairs, but let's go on the high end and say $20k for that. That means it cost me an average of $42k / 23 = $1826 per year for that car, excluding fuel. In a year that I drove 10k miles, when the car's fuel economy was 24 MPG and the fuel cost $4 per gallon, the fuel would cost…

[deleted]

Re: Denver’s e-bike subsidy program produced more new riders, fewer car trips

#39

Post by avianlyric »

j_walter wrote: post #16

Honestly this is not great efficiency. While getting more people of the road is great, the CO2e avoided per dollar is magnitiudes less than what can be done at the private company level. $4.77M for 2,040 MT CO2e reduced/avoided yearly My company was able to install a abatement unit that reduced >4,000 MT CO2e yearly for ~$150K. We are doing many more of these, but the cost is way better on a per lb level than this wa…

Has it occurred to you that e-bikes provide greater benefits than just CO2 reduction?

They also reduce congestion by removing car journeys, they reduce amount of road infrastructure that needs to be built, they reduce the cost of maintaining road infrastructure (e-bike cause effectively zero damage to roads), they reduce healthcare costs by improving rider fitness.

In short, for a government getting people on e-bikes can result in huge savings for relatively small investments. I believe for most developed nations you would expect every $1 spent on improving active travel to produce at least $2 of savings over a ten year period.

Re: Denver’s e-bike subsidy program produced more new riders, fewer car trips

#40

Post by flyingpenguin »

PaulsWallet wrote: post #22

My problem with e-bikes is my problem with regular bikes. Riding on the sidewalk is generally not permitted and I don't trust drivers in cars to not murder me while driving in the street.

The amount of public real-estate we dedicate exclusively to enabling peoples usage of their private property in the united states (and to lesser extents all other countries really) is absolutely absurd.

I have considered just walking slowly in random lanes of traffic while in downtown areas recently. On what grounds do you need thousands of acres of space? Speed limits should often be 4-5mph and space usage should be shared.

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